MONTGOMERY, Ala. — Formerly known as the Department of Labor, the Alabama Department of Workforce and its leaders are hoping to expedite the agency’s restructuring and branding that kicked off last year with the passage of several bills aimed at improving the state’s low labor participation.
“We’ve got a lot to be done,” said Workforce Secretary Greg Reed, who was appointed by Gov. Kay Ivey to helm the rebranded agency, speaking during a ADW Executive Committee meeting Thursday.
Among the five bills that targeted labor participation that became law last year, the Alabama Workforce Transformation Act was the primary driver of the restructuring of the Labor Department, and required the agency to develop a strategic workforce plan for the governor and the Legislature by Feb. 1, 2027.
Jeff Peoples, CEO of Alabama Power Company and chair of the ADW Executive Committee, proposed to the body that the development of the strategic workforce plan, which is to include recommendations for increasing the state’s 57.7% labor participation rate, among the lowest in the nation, be expedited.
“I don’t think that we can wait until spring of 2027 to come out with the strategic workforce plan around what we’re going to do in the state,” Peoples said. “I don’t know how we’re going to run a railroad with all of these converging things going on if we don’t expedite getting a plan pulled together. We need to at least get the framework of a plan in place here pretty quickly.”
What Peoples proposed was that the committee complete the framework of the plan by June of this year, something members agreed with, including Reed, who told Alabama Daily News that haste was necessary to meet the expectations of state lawmakers and Ivey.
“They’ve given us a mandate to do this task, and we’ve got some outcomes that they’re going to be depending on us to be able to accomplish, and so the sooner we can get at the job, I think the better,” he told ADN.
Other efforts the committee spoke about expediting include rebranding the agency and developing a centralized message to better communicate its refined mission of increasing labor participation, which Peoples summed up as “we want to put people to work.”
Raising a thick packet into the air, Reed spoke to members about a request for proposal the agency was in the process of finalizing. It would seek proposals from marketing companies to aid in the agency rebranding effort.
“What’s in the RFP for branding and marketing, No. 1, we’re looking to develop a single workforce brand that promotes and provides for a united voice; if we’re going to move this forward, we’re all going to have to be on the same page,” Reed said.
“(It will also help us in) implementing a grassroots and community-based outreach that champions career awareness and job recruitment at the local level helps connect job seekers to employment opportunities and career paths.”
Other impending changes include the agency moving from its existing building across from the State Capitol in Montgomery to the Gordon Persons Building a few blocks east, which Reed said would be complete by July 1. The space Workforce Department staff will move into was previously used by the Department of Revenue, which relocated to the Centennial Hill Building in February.
Reed also told ADN that, to accomplish the task of increasing the state’s labor participation, the Workforce Department may ask Ivey and state lawmakers for additional funding.
“If we need things to help us accomplish things that we need to get done in the short term, then I’m confident that the Legislature’s going to be supportive,” he said.
Improving labor participation has been top of mind for state leaders for years, with the Legislature commissioning a body in 2023 to identify the largest barriers to employment for Alabamians. Some of those identified barriers, which included lack of access to health care, transportation and child care, have been targeted legislatively, such as a child care tax credit adopted last year.